


You're still my destiny

by CaptainSif



Category: Ever After High
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Fate & Destiny, Free Will, Future Fic, Legacy Day, Mentioned Daring Charming, POV Apple White, POV Raven Queen, POV Third Person, Poison Apples, Poisoning, True Love's Kiss, genuine friendship, history repeats itself, mentioned Briar Beauty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:07:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27477784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainSif/pseuds/CaptainSif
Summary: Another year, another Legacy Day.Apple convinced Raven to step up to the podium again.But Apple still has expectations, and Raven still has aspirations.A lot has changed in this year and just as much hasn't.The girls reconcile with what is predestined and with what isn't.
Relationships: Raven Queen/Apple White
Comments: 6
Kudos: 46
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SkyTintedWater](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkyTintedWater/gifts).



> Dear SkyTintedWater,
> 
> happy Yuletide to you! (And merry Christmas, if you're celebrating it!)
> 
> Your request resonated a lot with some of the thoughts I had about theste two girls for years, so I mixed the two together ~~totally not forgetting about a canon story line in the process~~ and am now hoping that you enjoy what I wrote for you!
> 
> You said that you love all the characters in the show so I filled two very small roles with Briar Beauty and Daring Charming in a way that is hopefully doing their canon versions justice, as well as pleasing to you.
> 
> Beta'ed by [saiditallbefore](https://archiveofourown.org/users/saiditallbefore). All remaining mistakes are mine.

They have an evening routine by now and it looks a little like this:

They fight over the use of the bathroom, dirty tricks allowed, even though most nights they end up sharing it anyway.

Apple stays in there longer, following her skincare routine meticulously and without compromise.

When Raven leaves the room, she rolls her eyes, pretending like she’s not about to smile, just as Apple pretends not to see it.

It works for them and she’s not about to threaten this peace between them.

Once under her covers, Apple calls out “Good night, Ravie”, just because she can. Because Raven no longer throws curses her way when she says it. Because they are friends. And Apple has fought so hard for this, so [by God uuugghh Book of Destiny?], she’s gonna enjoy it.

Raven sighs but she still throws a “Good night, Apple-nova” her way.

If Apple has to pinpoint her favorite part of the day, this would be it.

She always falls asleep with a smile.

  
  
  
  


Raven skeptically tilts her head at her reflection. “Don’t you think this crown makes me look too evil?”

Apple had been about to pin up her own hair. She lets it fall back down on her shoulders. She struts over to her friend— who is she kidding?, her  _ best friend— _ and takes a look at what she’s wearing.

“If anything, you don’t look evil enough”, she says with a confidence she’s not quite sure she’s feeling.

Sure, she’s confident. And yes, she trusts that today will turn out well. But still, she compensates with a determination that Raven lacks on this day. Apple understands but still, she feels like she needs to be strong for the both of them today. Put on that extra bit of confidence and determination. Remind her that it’ll all be okay. That  _ they’ll _ be okay.

Raven sighs sadly but proceeds to put on her earrings.

Apple puts her arm around Raven’s waist, careful not to impede her movement or make a crease into Raven’s carefully shaped dress during the hug.

“You can do it!” She reassures her cheerfully. “It will feel a lot shorter than you remember it!”

Apple can see Raven’s lips quirking up for a short second but she’s quick to be back to her former glum expression.

_ Perfect _ , Apple thinks, and  _ let the Legacy Day begin anew _ .

They’re sitting together at this year’s Legacy Day,  _ as it should be _ . Apple finds, after all, their destinies are very much intertwined.

In front of them are two rows of students that participate in the Legacy Day for the first time this year and Apple can tell that they are nervous too. Some of them look to her as if to confirm that they’re making the right choice in signing their name. She holds her head extra high. Some others are looking to Raven, hesitantly of course. They are all aware of what it means if Raven signs in the book today. Raven set a powerful precedent that needs to be rectified.

_ Not if Raven signs _ , Apple reminds herself,  _ when Raven signs _ .

She looks beside her to the girl in question who is staring blankly to the front where their principal is just about to take the stage.

Gently, she nudges her with her elbow and presents her with an encouraging smile.

Raven doesn’t smile back but her shoulders unclench and when she turns back to the front her stare is no longer blank but filled with a determination that would make most of the student body of Ever After High tremble.

But not Apple White. Because this stare means her destiny is safe.

She is safe. Both of them are.

And she’s waited a year for this.

When Headmaster Grimm announces Raven as the first one to go up, Apple grabs Raven’s hand, effectively stopping her mid-motion.

“I know that you’re nervous”, she explains, “but you’re making the right choice.”

Raven nods. “I know I am.”

Apple lets her hand fall down. She sits back as Raven walks down the aisle.

Raven’s heels click on the stairs up to the stage and Apple holds her breath in anticipation.

Raven’s eyes wander over the audience, lingering for a little longer on Apple, but her gaze doesn’t stay there, not yet. “I’m standing here another year,” she addresses the audience. “Last year, I made a decision out of my gut. This time I’ve had a whole year to think about it. And think about it, I did.”

“Last year, I destroyed Apple White’s destiny. This year I plan to give it back to her.”

A pleased smile takes hold of Apple’s face.

“Nevertheless, this year again” Raven continues, “My decision is not the one you expect me to take.”

Now her eyes find Apple’s. There’s a sense of foreboding in the air, and a sense of déjà-vu, but Apple is an optimist with unwavering trust in the ones she holds dear and as such, the determination that Raven’s been sporting still feels comforting to her.

“I know you won’t understand” Raven pleads, and there’s no doubt that this address is meant for one person in this room full of people, and one person only. “Last year I had my selfish reasons but let there be no doubt that this year I’m doing it for you.”

And with these words, Raven leaves the stage.

It’s nothing extraordinary, no thunder or lightning, no evil laughing as Raven walks towards the exit; just a room full of people murmuring and chattering, too afraid of Raven’s powers to stop her, and in their midst, Apple: her face even whiter than usual, frozen on the spot at this repeat of events.

“Not again!” she cries once she’s composed herself, her heels clicking on the tile floor as she runs after her roommate, best friend, supposed enemy, and now apparently traitorous witch. Though those aren’t words Apple herself would use.

She curses her choice of footwear that she had been so very proud of just mere minutes ago. She wishes she had at least reacted sooner, so Raven would have less of a lead on her.

Halfway across the way back to the castle Apple finally strips off her shoes, running the rest of the way barefoot.

She arrives in their room, out of breath, but Raven is nowhere to be found. Apple’s eyes fall on the windows that they’ve left wide open earlier and in the distance, Apple can see a dark point moving in between the apple trees of the orchard. Apple has no doubt it’s Raven. She takes a deep breath, lifts up her skirt, and returns to running.

The hallways of the school are mostly empty but the few people that cross her furrow their brows at her sight. It is a funny picture she paints, Apple assumes: Apple White, future queen, fully dressed up on Legacy Day, running through the castle like she’s crazy. It seems like she has been, believing Raven could leave her selfish ideals behind to secure her future.

Apple slows down her speed once the plantation is in her sight and she realizes Raven sat down in between the apple trees.

“Raven!”, she accuses as soon as she’s close enough to be heard, “what was that?”

“I couldn’t do it” Raven replies softly, looking up into Apple’s eyes.

“We’re friends!” Tears start to stream down Apple’s face. “How could you do this to me? Build my hopes up like that? I thought that if we were friends you would see how important this was to me and finally accept your destiny.”

“Is that really what you thought would happen?” Raven replies, sounding sad.

_ What does Raven have to be sad over? It’s me who just lost her destiny. Again _ , Apple thinks.

“Taking up my mother’s legacy entails hurting you,” Raven reminds her. “There’s no way in hell I’d let that happen. Let alone do it myself.”

“But you know it won’t be forever,” Apple pleads. “You know that Daring will save me and then we’ll marry and I’ll become queen. You won’t really hurt me. Only temporarily.”

“But do you really want that? Do you even want to marry Daring?”

Apple sinks down next to her.

“It doesn’t matter.” Raven shrugs dejectedly. “It wouldn’t work anyway. I’ve tried poisoning apples but I can’t. You realize that part of the incantation is wanting to hurt the person you plan to give them to?”

Apple swallows.

“I couldn’t do it.”

Raven sighs, brushing dust off her skirt and standing up. “You’re better off without that destiny anyway.”

“And who gave you the right to make that choice for me? I can very much make my own decisions!” Apple cries after her.

Raven nods. “Now you can.”

She leaves and Apple finds herself sitting alone and overdressed in an apple field.  _ How ironic _ .

This is not how she expected today to go. Raven didn’t live up to the trust Apple put in her for the second time in a row. Apple wonders why she even bothers to be surprised. It’s Raven Queen in all her evil glory. She’s only been showing her true nature that Apple had been aware of since the very first day they met, foiling Apple’s plans and following in her mother’s footsteps by not stepping into her mother’s footsteps. Again,  _ ironic _ .

Except it’s not. Raven is Apple’s friend. Apple has spent twelve full months making sure that’s what she’d be. And as such Apple knows Raven. Raven dislikes her mother. Raven dislikes doing evil for evil’s sake. Raven dislikes hurting people she cares about. And Apple spent the last twelve months making sure that would apply to her.

So, in all honesty, when it comes to Raven finally signing in the book, is that really what she thought would happen?

Raven was right about what she said. But Apple is a future queen in her own right and as such, she has her pride. It keeps her from going up to their room and talking it out. And it also keeps her from going back to the Legacy Day festivities. She could not live with the pitying looks.  _ Apple White is not to be pitied _ .

Instead, she stays beneath the apple trees, leaning back and splaying out on the grass. When she extends her arms, her right-hand brushes against a fallen apple. Apple picks it up and contemplates it. Deciding it’s good to eat, she bites into it and imagines the poison getting into her body and spreading through her veins. It’s the closest she’ll ever get to feeling that. She’s got no doubts that Raven will never participate in another Legacy Day ever again.

When she finally makes her way back to their bedroom after wandering barefoot through the by now abandoned hallways of the school, Raven is already lying in bed. Apple knows the signs, she’s not sleeping. And Apple wants to say something, doesn’t want to lose their friendship, even though she knows they’ll never want the same thing,  _ that they are meant to be enemies even _ .

So she trudges off to the bathroom alone. Stays in there for way longer than needed, follows her skincare routine meticulously and without compromise. It’s the one thing she still has control of. Then she tapers back into the room. Once under the covers, she calls out “Good night, Ravie,” hesitantly and less cheerfully than normal.

Raven sighs, but she still mumbles a “Good night, Apple-nova.”

Despite the events of the day, Apple falls asleep with a smile.


	2. Chapter 2

“Bring them all!” Apple screams out of the window, just as Raven enters their bedroom. “We’re not excluding anyone!”

Somebody screams back from down below but Raven can’t make out what they’re saying. Apple, on the other hand, is sporting her face of concentration and laughing at the reply.

“Don’t worry about it!” She yells back. “Raven can’t hurt a fly!”

“Am I right in assuming you’re inviting the whole school to  _ ‘our’ _ dorm party?” Raven asks, lifting her eyebrows.

Apple turns towards her and smiles. “Yes, but most of them still don’t believe me that you’re harmless.”

“I’m not harmless!” Raven disagrees. “I choose to do no harm. That’s different.”

Apple laughs.

“For that, I’ll show you.” Raven smirks. "I’m not harmless." She picks up an apple from the basket she’s carrying and throws it in Apple’s direction, aiming for it to closely pass her and sail out the window. Except it doesn’t, because Apple catches it.

“Oh, apples!” She notices delightedly, biting into it.

Raven shakes her head, chuckling. “I picked up a few. Thought you might enjoy having them for tonight.” She picks up one herself, biting into it.

“Thank you,” Apple says as she strides over to her roommate, enveloping her in a short hug around the waist before going off into another corner of the room. When she comes back to Raven she’s carrying a letter. 

Raven notices that Apple looks apologetic and hesitates before explaining: “You received mail from your mother.”

Rage forms in the pit of Raven’s stomach and quickly rises up to form a cloud around her thoughts and vision. Her hands clench, her grip around the apple and the handle of the basket quickly becoming painful.

_ Don’t let the rage control you _ , Raven reminds herself, taking a deep breath, slowly putting down the fruit basket. Once her vision is clear again, she also lets go of the apple, cautiously unclenching her hand before putting it down softly on her dressing table.

Then, she straightens her spine again, taking another deep breath to regain her composure.

“Leave it on my bed.” Raven manages to say. “I’ll read it after afternoon classes.”

Apple nods and does as told, gauging her friend’s reaction in the process.

“I’m okay,” Raven reassures her. “Let’s just go to class for now.”

Apple doesn’t dare to object.

There’s a commotion around their dorm room that got the alarm bells in Raven’s brain ringing. She hurries to get inside, just as the nurse that’s standing next to Apple’s bed proclaims: “She was poisoned!”

Freezing on the spot, Raven repeats absentmindedly: “Poisoned?”

Raven sees the looks of the people in the room shift to look at her and she knows what’s coming. She squares her shoulder and tries not to let it get to her. She’s had some practice with that over the last few years. She can ignore it. What matters now is Apple’s well-being and nothing else.

“Did you finally decide to follow your mom and poison her?” she hears someone say across the room. She doesn’t want to know who it is.

She steps towards where Apple is lying across her bed, even more pale than usual. “Can you heal her?” Raven asks the nurse.

“That depends”, the nurse replies. “Does somebody know what the last thing was that she ate?”

Raven looks up to see Briar on the other side of Apple’s bed, her face contorted in the same worry that Raven herself is feeling right now.

“You were here with Apple to decorate for our party, right?” Raven asks her. “Do you remember if she ate anything?”

Briar looks up at the sound, first at Raven, then to the side. Raven follows her line of sight, cataloging her own dressing table and everything that’s on display there. She also takes note that the apple she bit off earlier is no longer there.  _ Wait. _ Her eyes flit back to Briar.

“You don’t think I could have...?”

The guilty look on Briar’s face is telling enough and Raven gets it. Even if Briar wants to believe Raven is innocent, the combination of her destiny, the last thing that Apple ate being an apple, and her having been poisoned— it makes her look suspicious.

“I can look into a healing charm”, the nurse says, addressing both Briar and Raven, “But a true love’s kiss would be needed if it’s a curse.”

She levels Raven with a serious look. “And considering her destiny, that’s the likeliest option.”

“It wasn’t me, I swear.” Raven tries again, frustration coloring her voice. “I didn’t refuse to take on my legacy twice, only to then poison Apple anyway.”

“Just get her a true love’s kiss,” the nurse orders and then leaves the room.

The other students who surround them start mumbling and scrambling to get Daring to take care of it. Even Raven can’t help but let her eyes wander towards him. He’s destined to save her after all. And  _ he _ did sign in the Storybook of Legends.

But Raven knows that Apple doesn’t love him. At least not the way she’s supposed to for this to work. And she doesn’t think Daring loves Apple, either. Raven knows enough about him that he’s going to try to fulfill his duty anyway, that he’ll want to fulfill his duty, even if he knows he can’t. And while he doesn’t  _ love  _ her, he still cares for Apple.

Daring is hesitant, but eager to fulfill his destiny and save Apple and so he lets the crowd guide him to her. Briar, Raven, as well as the rest of the students in the room, watch him raptly as he leans over the sleeping girl and presses his lips down on hers.

He leans back, but nothing happens. Apple still lies unconscious and motionless among the covers on her king-size bed.

Raven looks down on the ground, pinching her nose. She didn’t expect anything else, but still, this turn of events will fall back on her.

Across from her, Daring is panicking. “Why is she not waking up?” He’s turning his eyes away from Apple and once he perceives Raven, he accuses her: “This is your fault. By not taking on your legacy you’ve also messed with ours. Apple is lost now.” He lets himself fall back into the cushions of the armchair in the corner of the room.

Raven would be tempted to agree with him if she didn’t know that it wouldn’t have worked either way. And to a certain degree, messing with Apple’s legacy was even the point. The point was for Apple not to have to go through what she’s currently going through. And if it spared both Apple and Daring the misfortune of being stuck in a marriage they’ve long been less enthusiastic about than they should be? Then that’s good too, they both deserve better than that. She just hopes that Daring comes around to see that one day as well. Just as she hopes Apple does.

If she wakes up.

When she wakes up?

  
  
  
  


Raven goes to sit down on her own bed, watching and observing the other people in her room. They may have put out the option of this situation being her fault but are paying her no mind now. It’s calming to realize that her being evil is just  _ an _ option now, and no longer the only considered option.

Raven continues to look over at Apple, and so do the others, but Apple still doesn’t budge a centimeter. Slowly, people start to leave: first the people that don’t know her that well, and at last Daring and Briar.

Some of them even say goodbye to Raven.

“Take care of her,” Briar tells her, and Daring nods in her direction. They’re okay.

But once the two of them leave, Raven is alone in their bedroom with the unconscious Apple.

It’s weird.

The party is called off, obviously, so Raven goes to bed early.

No fight over the bathroom.

No good-natured eye-rolling over Apple’s antics.

And Apple is quiet. Oh so quiet.

Raven already misses it.

She throws a “Goodnight, Apple-nova” her way anyway.

The morning is quiet in a way that is unsettling.

Raven gets up and checks on Apple before she enters the bathroom to get ready.

Still pale. Still unmoving.

She still has some time before classes start and so she drags the armchair over to Apple’s bed, sitting down next to her for the few minutes that she still has remaining.

“I’m sorry,” Raven says, “I thought if I didn’t sign I could prevent this from happening. Seems like all of my efforts were moot after all. Your signing might have been enough to seal both of our fates.” 

“And isn’t that ironic?” Raven cautiously grabs Apple’s hand that is closest to her and engulfs it in her own. “That after over a year of you berating me for deciding both of our fates, it is actually  _ your _ decision that takes away our agency in the matter.”

Raven sighs but takes up Apple’s hand to rest her forehead against it.

“I’m sorry, Apple” she moves her head to press her lips on the back of Apple’s hand for a second. “I really wish I could’ve spared you this.”

She guides Apple’s hand back to the bed but keeps it in her palm for a second longer while getting up and getting ready to leave. Finally, she lets go of Apple’s hand.

But there’s pressure around it now and Raven finds herself unable to let go. Then Apple starts coughing and Raven can’t help but fall back into the armchair.

Then she thinks better of it and gets up again. “If you let me go I’ll get you a cup of water.”

“No,” Apple says, gripping her tighter. “Stay.”

Once Apple stops coughing she leans back into her pillows. “This is not how I imagined this to happen.”

“I didn’t imagine this to happen at all,” Raven admits, then smirks sadly. “But at least you got your poisoned apple.”

Apple lets out a chuckle which quickly devolves into a cough. Before Raven can rush to get her a nurse, she finds her footing again.

“You’re not the one supposed to wake me up.” Apple says.

“I’m also not supposed to poison you on accident and look how that turned out.”

Apple smiles at that and draws Raven’s hand closer to her, intertwining their fingers. Raven is quiet.

Then: “It’s kind of fitting, looking at the last year as a whole.”

Apple chuckles, this time more softly and without falling into a coughing fit: “After all the time I stressed about me not getting my destiny it turns out you’re still my destiny, just not the way I expected.”

Raven laughs at that. “I’m still your destiny. Just not your enemy.”

Apple smiles and lifts Raven’s hand to her lips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you liked it!
> 
> A link to reblog it on tumblr will appear here once authors are revealed.


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